Position in chronology
Ashurbanipal 150
Translation — scholar edition
RINAP 5(1') [... a]nd the goddess Iš[tar ...] whee[l(s) ... the land] Elam [... (5´) ...] Tammar[ītu ... him]self [...] ... I/he took the d[irect road ...] m[y] troops [... dust storm]s were whirling abou[t ... (10´) ...] I slaught[ered] his [warrior]s [... l]ike grain, which [... a c]ommon (soldier), who [...] ..., the city Ar[... I] flattened an[d ... (15´) ...]s, as man[y as ...]
Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period, volume 5 — scholar edition (ORACC).
Why it matters
Chronicles Ashurbanipal's Elamite campaign alongside the rebel king Tammarītu, placing Ištar's intervention at the heart of Assyrian royal ideology in the wars that destroyed Elam in the 650s BCE.
Transliteration
[...] x [...] / [...] ⸢ù⸣ d⸢15⸣ [...] / [...] x ma-gar-⸢ri⸣ [...] / [... KUR].⸢e⸣-lam-ti ⸢ú⸣-[...] / [...] x mtam-ma-⸢ri⸣-[tú ...] / [...] ⸢AḪ⸣ ra-man-[šú? ...] / [...] x-nu uš-te-⸢eš⸣-[še-ra ḫar-ra-nu? ...] / [...] ⸢DA?⸣ ERIM.ḪI.A-⸢ia⸣ [...] / [... a-šam-šá]-⸢ti⸣ iṣ-ṣa-nun-⸢da⸣ [...] / [... qu-ra?]-⸢di⸣-šú ú-pal-⸢li⸣-[iq ...] / [...] ⸢ki⸣-ma ŠE.IM šá x [...] / [...] ⸢a?⸣-ḫu-ru-u ⸢šá⸣ x [...] / [...] x.KI URU.ar-x [...] / [...] ⸢as⸣-pu-un-⸢ma?⸣ [...] / [...].⸢MEŠ⸣ ma-⸢la?⸣ [...] / [...] x [...]
Scholarly note
Royal inscription of Ashurbanipal or a late Sargonid successor, edited by Jamie Novotny & Joshua Jeffers (RINAP 5, 2018–). ORACC text Q007558.
Attribution
Image: BM — (British Museum, London, UK) — from Nineveh (mod. Kuyunjik) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P396491). source
Translation excerpted from Novotny, J. & Jeffers, J. 2018–. The Royal Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BC), Aššur-etel-ilāni (630–627 BC) and Sîn-šarra-iškun (626–612 BC), Kings of Assyria. RINAP 5. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns. https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/rinap5/Q007558/.
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.